By: James Barber , University of New England, Australia (Pages 7 to 14)

In the broadband world, there will be no such thing as distance education. With broadband, nobody need be distant from very much at all anymore. Just about anything you could once do only on a university campus, will soon be available to you anywhere anytime. Of course there will always be some educational activities, such as clinical placements and medical procedures, that require students to be physically present somewhere at some time but the range of these activities will become narrower as the bandwidth available to us becomes broader. Welcome to the ‘Cyberversity’. This paper by Professor James Barber, Vice Chancellor of The University of New England, Australia, explores his ideas about the ‘Cyberversity’.

Disability is intensely personal. It affects your bodily senses and functions and your thinking; it leaves its traces in self concept and social identity. It produces pain and shame as well as desire and achievement. It opens doors to new life-giving meaning and/or to stumbling down the stairs of self-abnegation. And if it is not your impairment but the journey of one you love, its personal impact is just as intense. Different but no less transforming. This paper explores the recently announced National Disability Insurance Scheme and some of the challenges around disability in society.

This paper argues that social innovation requires dispensing with social justice as a goal. Why? Despite the best of intentions of advocates of social justice, the outcomes of social justice initiatives are axiomatically perverse. I argue that advocates of social justice, rather than the ostensible target populations they champion, are the primary beneficiaries of social justice initiatives (Sinclair, 2000; Sinclair, 2002). This seemingly counter-intuitive effect is caused by the field of social justice activity itself, which has become a market in victim circumstances.

This paper explores the construct of resilience as evidenced in a case study focused on Higher Degree Research (HDR) students as they undertake their studies. A three dimensional framework for resilience is used as a lens to better understand the conditions that develop resilience for this group of students and how personal and institutional resources can support them. This process is termed resilience education. The paper asserts that resilient individuals are resource builders who are better able to adapt and deal with changing circumstances.

By David Lynch and Richard Smith of Southern Cross University (Pages 85 to 102)

In 2000 Central Queensland University conducted the first major review and redevelopment of its teacher education programs. Consequently the Bachelor of Learning Management (or BLM) came into being. A central premise of the BLM was the concept of graduate teachers having a ‘futures orientation’. In this article the results of a study into the perceptions of mentors and graduate teachers, with respect to a futures orientation, are reported.

Social Issues Confronting Saudi Students Undertaking International Study: An Exploratory Investigation

By: Bedour A. Abouammoh and Larry Smith: The University of New England, Australia (Pages 51 to 65)

This paper explores some of the difficulties encountered by Saudi students in adjusting to living and studying in another country. It focuses on the process of ‘acculturation’: how the students modify their own cultural beliefs and behaviours in response to contact with one or more other cultures. Currently, more than 130,000 Saudi students are studying at universities outside the country. An exploratory study was undertaken with Saudi students studying in the United kingdom. The methodology involved a focus group session, a questionnaire, interviews and a validation session. Ten major issues were identified that suggest that Saudi students studying outside their own country experience significant acculturation difficulties.

This paper describes the use of Auditory-Verbal Therapy (A-VT) to ‘grow brains’ in early childhood learners via intensive auditory brain stimulation that develops listening and speaking skills. One research focus of a specialty paediatric hearing health and education centre, Hear and Say Brisbane Australia, is directed at the period after surgical implantation of the Cochlear Implant. At that time, there is a critical need for intensive auditory brain stimulation by trained and accredited listening and spoken language specialists using evidence-based practice.

To further the advancement of society and in particular those societies contained within regional catchments, this article argues that the imperative element of success is higher education, and further that multipliers are applied when the knowledge generated is aligned with the regional vision and takes full consideration of regional needs, resources, assets and societal challenges. The product of this circumstance the author has identified as ‘Meta Civica’, a state of higher order society in a qualitative progressive sense. This article explores the associated premises as they relate to regional universities in Australia.

This Paper introduces the intertwined concepts of coping and resilience, with their varied dimensions. Beginning with brief stories that show how individuals, groups, communities and nations display both coping and resilience every day, the analysis shifts to the meaning of every day stress and adversity that have become inevitable parts of daily jigsaw puzzle of life. The paper also presents a bird’s eye view of the meaning of every day stress and adversity that have become inevitable parts of our daily life and brings in strengths perspective into resiliency and finally signals the efficacy of an inner strengths approach.

Ken Sell is the Principal of Trondheim International School, Norway. Originally from Queensland, Australia, Ken was employed in various education capacities by the State education authority, Education Queensland, before deciding to take up the challenge of school leadership in a foreign country. In this article he reports his adventure.